


stars in secret influence

by crimson_adder



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Amnesia, Crossdressing, Drama, Gender Roles, Inspired by Anastasia (1997 & Broadway), M/M, Mistaken Identity, Referenced/implied child abuse, References to Shakespeare, Veretians are horny on main
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimson_adder/pseuds/crimson_adder
Summary: “Can you, ah, act?” Old Charls asked, clasping his hands together and twisting.“Ah,” said Damen, who could not.“Damen, here, is hoping to rejoin his family,” coaxed Young Charls. “And, since we’re heading southanyway…I thought to offer passage, and perhaps assist him in his preparations to meet with his esteemed father once again.”“Ah.” Old Charls didn’t seem to follow, but he nodded anyway.**On the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Prince Damianos from Ios, King Theomedes offers a reward to anyone who can bring him proof of Damianos’ fate.In Vere, a travelling troupe of actors find the perfect man for the job, and head south to make their fortunes.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (au where everything’s the same except Damen is Anastasia & Laurent has joined the circus)
> 
> there are a lot of cake metaphors, none of which i’m sorry about
> 
> i promise i’m still writing double vision 🙃  
> i had a bunch of comic deadlines & listened to the whole series on audiobook & now my brain won’t stop screaming about Elizabethan theatre nonsense

When a new king is crowned in Akielos, the bells ring out at dusk, rising over the city of Ios as the sun falls. First the square, then the palace walk, then the market, a growing cacophony that cascades down the slope to carry the message in the warm evening air. More and more bells, until the city and the people ring in concert with their king until full dark, so that the sun will rise on a new reign.

The bell that tolled in the morning was a single, steady beat.

_We mourn, together. As our hearts beat, so too does our grief._

It was a solemn day, as it always was, the same day every year.

Theomedes-Exalted was before his people, above the courtyard, under the tolling bell. It rang until the sun crested the walls, and the first light touched the King where he stood, resplendent in royal red atop the balcony. When the bell stopped, its final _gong_ echoing over marble columns, the King spoke.

“Our greatest hearts desire is to see our son again, whether in life or death. We offer you, in this tenth year of his disappearance, a reward of five hundred thousand gold lei and clemency to anyone who can bring us word of Prince Damianos’ fate. One million, to the man who brings our son back, alive and unharmed.”

The King raised his hand as whispers broke out amongst the crowd and were hurriedly stifled. 

“Know, that we have no tolerance for duplicitousness, nor will there be clemency offered to those who bring us falsehoods or lies. In one year’s time, we will bury our son for good, and give his memory to the Gods as they see fit.”

He turned, his proclamation finished, and receded from the balcony, passing his son Kastor, Crown Prince of Akielos. Prince Kastor stayed for a moment longer, his dark eyes watching the crowd rapidly going to chaos as their voices rose in wild speculation, before he too turned, and followed his father into the marbled halls of the palace. 

Riders brought word to the kyroi, and rumor spread through the provinces. 

It had been ten years since the loss of Theomedes-Exalted’s trueborn son of Queen Egeria, heir to the throne, and the city had never given over mourning. 

If Prince Damianos was alive, someone would surely find him.

  


* * *

  


On that day, ten years before, Damianos’ personal slaves wailed and slit their own throats to see his blood spattered chambers empty. Tables overturned, weapons scattered on the ground, bed linens and curtains ripped and torn.

He’d only been a boy, yet already the shining star of his people, favored by his father, beloved by his older brother, laughing and strong and on the cusp of manhood. He had received his father’s lion pin, the pin that marked him as heir, just weeks before at his thirteenth birthday, and then he had been ripped from his family in one deceitful, murderous night. 

There was no ransom.

There was no word.

Kastor, bastard elder son of Theomedes, was gifted his own pin, a newly fashioned lion head with a curling mane of twisted gold, on the first anniversary of his brother’s disappearance.

  


* * *

  


The inn’s main room was noisy with gossip and raised voices.

“Have you heard? There’s a rumor in Akielos that the barbarian-King will pay a thousand lei to any man who’ll bring him word of his son.”

“His son, the bastard prince-killer?”

“ _No,_ his second son, the one who got himself killed or such.”

“That was fifteen years ago, wasn’t it?”

“It was ten years ago, and it’s a hundred-thousand lei, and he’ll kill you if you lie.”

“He’d kill you anyway, if you tried to sneak into the barbarian palace, you can’t speak Akielon for shit.”

“That’s quite the royal sum.”

A lull in the conversation, and men drank deeply of their wine.

One man, without raising his head, said in a low voice, “The Prince of Vere will reach his majority this year.”

The lull, as quiet as an inn ever got, with the fire crackling and the sound of eating, noises from the kitchen and the clink of ceramic on wood, froze in place like an indrawn breath.

The man who had brought up the topic looked around at the silent room, and sighed. 

“I haven’t heard talk of the Prince in years,” a man in the fine clothes of a merchant spoke up, “Is he still in Acquitart?”

“He has isolated himself in order to better study. He’s very studious, and dedicated to learning everything he can about policy and taxes and his people’s welfare,” offered another, “According to the Regent.”

“Do you think he’ll come out long enough to be crowned, or do you think he’ll miss the festivities buried in a book?”

“If he wants to learn about his people, he should be amongst his people,” a woman muttered into her cup, only to be shushed by her companions. Someone let out a snort of laughter, but the sound was muffled, and no one could see where it had come from.

“He’s a disgrace,” an old man said, and spat on the floor. “Fleeing his duties and responsibilities, a coward. He was nothing like his brother, and if he shows his face again, I’ll not support him.”

“You disrespect your Prince,” another shouted, leaping to his feet. “Prince Laurent is a good and noble man, and he _will_ return for his ascension. He will be a great king.”

The old man spat again, at the soldier.

More men stood, and braced themselves for a fight, and the innkeeper clanged pots from the kitchen together in a raucous noise. “That’s enough! I won’t have any traitorous talk, here, you lousy fools, from any of you. Be peaceful or get out,” and he eyed both the old man and the soldier who had refuted him.

The soldier sat, scowling, and turned his back on the old man, hunched over his wine. Beside him, a young blond man laid a gentle hand on his leather clad shoulder and gave him a few, half hearted, conciliatory pats. 

Damen let himself in to the main room once the talk of Akielos had died down. He did not enjoy the way conversations about their southern neighbor tended to stutter to a halt when he entered a room, as though he would flee to the border with any half-assed rumor and bring the barbarian armies down on the common people of Nesson-Eloy. So, he hovered, awkwardly, outside doors, listening to other people's chatter until he felt safe entering. It was an unattractive habit, made more uncomfortable by the fact that he was not of a size well suited to lurking, but it was better than the looks he got interrupting conversations.

Still, despite the casual mistreatment that followed him everywhere, he was not ill-liked in town, and some men greeted him with cheerful countenances. So long as the talk was not associated with his complexion or his unknown past, he was accepted. 

Damen raised a hand to Orean, the weaver’s girl, sitting with her friend Matilde, who apprenticed to the glassblower, at a narrow table away from the fireplace. He sat with them, and smiled his dimpled smile to make them flush. It was too bad Veretians had such unappealing notions of propriety, for he liked both girls quite well, as friends certainly, but also as lovely ripe peaches of his own age and status. He was not invited to their beds though, no matter how often they accompanied the other, and that was the way of things.

“You’re late, Damen,” scolded Orean, sipping from her mug of spiced wine. 

Damen shrugged. “I had to finish Allard’s work, or I wouldn’t have been able to come at all.”

“It’s a copper sol to stand in the yard,” added Matilde.

Damen swore, and was briefly distracted by the movement of several men from the tables out to the yard. One of them stopped at the door, and turned about face to block anyone else from passing through. 

Damen frowned. He had already paid his modest week’s wages to Edouard, the physician, and he didn’t have much left until the next time Allard would deign to pay him.

“I’ll pay for you, Damen,” reassured Matilde, a sweet blush crossing her pale cheeks. Though her hands were rough and calloused with burn scars, her face was lovely, and her teeth bit fetchingly into her lower lip. 

Orean ducked her head to hide a laugh. 

The yard, when they finally sidled their way through the door, depositing the required copper sols into the man’s care, was already packed full. Damen was elbowed in the back by several people trying to get a better view that was not impeded by his presence, and he had to dodge more than one irritated kick at his ankles. Still, Orean drew them on, wedging her way through the crowd to get a good spot. “This is the best troupe in Toutaine, I’ve heard, I want to be able to see!”

“I could lift you onto my shoulders,” offered Damen with a grin. 

Orean slapped his shoulder at the impropriety. 

The afternoon sun slanted over the tiled roof of the inn, and lit up the platform stage appealingly, clearly having been set up to catch that light. People stood on three sides where it protruded into the center of the yard, and curtains blocked the final side from view. Above them windows were opening, and people stepped out onto balconies to recline against the railings and watch from higher up.

“I’ve never seen a play like this before,” said Damen, breathless with the new experience.

Matilde looked at him funny. “How else would you see a play?”

Damen considered that. He had an image in his head of people reciting over the sound of a stringed instrument, in a wide, marble hall with the sun shining through the openings between the columns, but he couldn’t think of when he’s seen it. “I’ve just never had a chance to see one, I suppose.”

“We don’t get many troupes in town, it’s true,” added Orean. “Not with Nesson so close. The lords like to keep the really good players to themselves.” She clapped her hands in excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “This is one of my favorite plays!”

It was a good play, as far as Damen could tell. There were few battles, which diminished the quality somewhat, but the fight sequences that did occur were engaging and fun to watch. The story, probably, was about a pair of siblings mistaken for each other, who each accidentally ended up married to the same lady, in a riot of entrances and exits, and one of them was secretly a woman disguised as a man. 

Probably.

Damen had a little trouble following the recitations. 

When the sister was revealed, she whipped her hat off and let a cascade of yellow curls tumble down her back to leers and catcalls from the crowd. She turned, and winked at the audience. 

Damen was rapt.

  


* * *

  


The players were in town for a week. Damen tried to go back for every performance, but since Matilde could not keep supporting his new habit and he couldn’t actually afford the coin himself, he had to lean out the kitchen window instead of standing in the square. 

The yellow haired actress was his favorite. He didn’t get much chance to see her face, but her voice was strong, and rang out with a sense of power that made men straighten up to hear. And she was resplendent in her costumes. 

Sometimes she wasn’t in the productions, as they performed a different play every other day, trying to coax the most sols out of their audience, and then he watched for a young man in dark leathers, tall and broad shouldered, who played princes and heroes. 

When he returned to Edouard, the physician, his next pay day, Edouard grasped him by the shoulder. He had to reach very high up to do it.

“Damen, son, you have already repaid me many times over. I do not need your silvers, let alone what few your master offers you. You are a man, now,” he said earnestly. Edouard was not a tall man to begin with, and Damen stood higher than most, so Edouard had to let him go, dropping down off of his toes. He cleared his throat. “I commend your dedication and your honor to pay back your debts, but I do not like to see you stagnate. I didn’t save your life so you could become trapped in a life you did not choose.”

Damen wanted to protest, as he had many times before. Usually he could convince Edouard to accept the small modicum of payment he got from his blacksmithing, by way of believing in justice and being the more stubborn of the two, but it had become an increasingly difficult battle in recent years. Edouard had sacrificed months of time and effort, money and food, to keep him alive and rehabilitate him when he had first arrived in the man’s care, and Damen knew the coin lost was worth more than the paltry sums he could repay.

Allard, being prejudiced against both Damen’s coloration and his circumstances, had taken him on as apprentice only reluctantly at Edouard’s request once Damen had found his feet again after his injuries. He had not paid Damen until he could operate the smithy on his own, and then kept him from his hours, and paid him in small installments, all in the name of _not over-taxing himself_. It had taken a long time to even approach even in his repayment to Edouard. 

Still, it had been nearly ten years since they had come to know each other, as Edouard pointed out. “It’s time to make your own way in the world. Perhaps, if you find the opportunity, you could seek out your family,” he hedged, in false casualness. 

Damen had wanted to find his family for a long time. But he felt guilt in the pit of his stomach at the idea of leaving a debt unpaid.

“Then come find me again, once you are reunited,” Edouard offered, “And we can discuss this again.”

“Thank you,” said Damen.

  


* * *

  


Quitting Allard’s company unfortunately had to wait until Allard returned to the smithy. He had gone to the keep at Nesson and was not expected back for some few days.

Damen went about his work, and thought about where he would begin to look for his family.

Akielos, probably. They might be rude pigs, but an entire town couldn’t be too far off. A Patran merchant whose horse had needed shoeing had once commented that Damen’s complexion was of southern Akielos, Thrace and Kesus and Ios, where the land jutted out into the Ellosean sea. Damen didn’t have a very good idea of the scale the merchant had talked about. Would it be a week’s journey? A month’s?

“Are you the blacksmith?” A voice called.

Damen turned. Even though the answer was _technically_ no, there was no one else in the smithy wearing a leather apron and holding tongs, so he was hard pressed to guess who _else_ might be the blacksmith.

“Yes.”

It was a stunningly handsome young man, with bright blue eyes and a woolen cap. He was dressed in dark riding leathers, his jacket loosely laced over a white shirt. He tilted his chin up, so that he could look down his nose at Damen.

“One of our horses had thrown a shoe just outside of town. I’m to collect the farrier.”

“Did you bring her with you?”

The man sighed, and lost a little of his haughty attitude. “He’s hitched to the wagon, and refuses to be moved. Stubborn old brute. If you come, we’ll pay for the extra time it takes to get there.”

Damen asked if the shoe was whole and reusable, fetched his tools, and followed the man out of the smithy. He had a fine bay mare waiting out in the lane, of astonishing quality and clearly bred for hunting. 

They walked alongside each other, the man leading his mare in a slow clop on the cobbles. He introduced himself as Charls. 

“Are you a merchant?” Damen asked. He was not well equipped for long silences. 

The man blinked at him. “No.”

“Just travelling?”

“We’ve been in town on business.”

When Charls said _just outside of town_ he meant the far side of town. Damen didn’t point out that there was more than one blacksmith in Nesson-Eloy, and two of them were significantly closer to the southern road out of town, because if he could get paid for the extra time it would help his new goal of leading southward himself. 

It took the better part of an hour to wind their way through to the outskirts, and then Damen saw the brightly painted shell of a caravan stuck in the middle of the road, and two wagons awkwardly dragged off to the side. A handful of men milled about aimlessly.

The caravan was familiar. 

“You are with the travelling players?” Damen asked, eagerly. 

Charls smiled, closed lipped, and dipped his head in acknowledgement, his bright eyes sliding over to look at Damen. 

“I saw all the shows,” Damen said, shifting under the piercing gaze. “I didn’t have the coin to get a seat, so I stood in the kitchen.” He wasn't sure if he should say he had spied on the play without paying, but something in the young man’s face demanded honesty from him. 

“You came every day?” Charls’ voice was cool and slyly amused.

“Yes.”

“And stood in the back.”

“It’s not such a bad vantage point.” Not when he stood a head taller than the rest of the crowd. “You can’t see the players very well, but I could hear it.” 

“Well, I’m pleased to hear you enjoyed yourself… Damen, wasn’t it?”

A man met them halfway. “You found him, then?” He asked Charls, eyeing Damen up and down. “He looks the part, alright.”

“Thank you, Jord,” said Charls, a note like a knife in his voice. “He is indeed a blacksmith equal to the task, I’m sure.”

Charls indicated to Damen the horse, a grey gelding who was as stubborn and as much of a brute as Charls had first indicated. Damen went about his job while eyeing the players as they mingled about. He pulled the old broken nails from the hoof, much to the horse’s chagrin, and wrestled him into submission to check for missing chunks. 

Jord and Charls stood just to the side, out of sight of the other players. 

“Are you sure about this? Your uncle—”

“My uncle has already begun moving his pieces. It’s my turn. I have no doubt we’d be better off outside his line of influence, regardless.”

Damen held the horse steady, braced against its shoulder, and refitted the old shoe, after checking it over for flaws and broken bits.

“Where is the lady?” Damen asked, once he had finished his work. “I would love to pay her my compliments, though I do not know her name.”

Jord looked at him with a blank face, no recognition in his eyes. “What lady?”

Damen frowned. “The lady who played Genevier, the Queen, and the sister in the big hat,” he said slowly, as though Jord had misheard. 

Jord frowned back. Behind him, another man, holding swaths of colorful cloth and moving them from one overburdened wagon to another, laughed aloud and almost tripped on trailing lace. Jord turned to scold him, and then back to Damen, an eyebrow raising. “There is no lady in our company. Women don’t act, much less ladies.”

Damen blinked. “Then who—”

Charls hopped down from the caravan then. He had discarded hat and jacket in the unmoving heat of the sun, and his yellow hair glinted like a coin, his white shirt billowing around his shoulders. “It’s less that they don’t act, and more that men won’t pay to see them. I’ve known plenty of women who can play a better game than this lot, but, you know Veretian sensibilities.” He gave an expansive shrug that moved his entire body. “The Regent has made his feelings known.”

Damen blinked again, and stood up straighter. He felt the need to in Charls’ presence. “Then who played the Lady Genevier?”

Charls smirked, and sauntered past. 

“You are Akielon, are you not?” he asked, instead of answering. “What are you doing in Toutaine?”

Damen’s face crumpled into an irritated frown. “That’s what I’m told.” And a bastard, which he could not refute, no matter how much it made his blood boil. “I have no notion of it.” 

It wasn’t really a question, though. 

This far north, Damen had skin brown enough to cause notice. It would not have troubled him nearly so much if he had a pedigree to go with it, but those few in town who shared his complexion did not share his lack of family history, and so were not subject to the rumors and ridicule that had followed Damen through the streets as long as he could remember. 

No one ever assumed he was Patran. 

“No family?”

“None. No history, either. I came to Nesson-Eloy as a child, and have little before that.” The only thing of his own was the pin, which he kept to himself. It would not have been his for long if others knew about it; an Akielon bastard has to earn his gold.

“How old were you?” Charls asked.

Damen shrugged. His master had thought he’d been at least fifteen, the physician who’d tended his wounds had said thirteen at best. “It was ten years ago.”

“And now? Are you content here, in Nesson-Eloy?”

Damen shook his head. “I am planning to leave any day now. My contract will be over soon,” as soon as he gave Allard a wave goodbye, “And I hope to make my way south, and find some trace of my past.”

Charls cut a look at Jord, hovering like a sentry, his face unreadable. Then he narrowed his eyes at Damen, and lifted a hand to his chin in determined contemplation. “Have you heard the rumors from Akielos?”

“What, the missing prince?”

“Damianos of Akielos, yes.”

“I’ve heard the rumors.”

“You know he went missing ten years ago.” Charls’ voice turned coaxing. “Have you ever considered, perhaps, another history for yourself? Something… grander?”

“Wait, you think—?”

Charls shrugged, not very casually, but making an attempt at it. “It’s a possibility.”

Damen laughed aloud at the absurdity. “I can honestly say the thought had never crossed my mind.”

Charls pushed off the wagon where he had been propped. “Well, I was going to invite you to join us, as we are heading south,” more pointedly, “ _Towards Akielos_ , but we have no room for mere hangers on. I had a thought, that’s all, that we could reunite you with your family, but,” Charls shrugged again, this time more deliberately. “I suppose not.”

Damen stopped him before he thought about it. “I could go with you. South, I mean.” He pulled his hand back from where it had caught Charls’ elbow, and used it to rub the back of his neck. “I mean there’s nothing to say I’m _not_ the,” He stuttered, “The lost Prince of Akielos.”

“Perhaps I’m no longer convinced it’s worth the effort,” Charls said, coolly. “You have nothing to show for it, after all.”

Damen felt burgeoning hope shred in his chest. “I have one thing.”

He had not meant to bring it up. He would not back down, though. Damen dipped his hand into the folds of his jacket where he kept it pinned always, and withdrew the pin that held the entirety of his past. The curl of mane, the arc of a tail, the rearing lion pin flashed in the afternoon sun, and the red stones of the eyes sparked like embers. “This is all I had with me when I woke. I could not bear to part with it, even though it would have paid my debts in full.” He curled his fingers around it again, protectively.

Charls was watching him closely. “Then let’s introduce you to your new master. We ride south at once.”

“Only,” Damen stopped him, “I do not know how to be a prince.”

Charls smiled, a little wry twist. “Then we will teach you.”

  


* * *

  


Charls was Young Charls, apparently, as opposed to Old Charls, who was the master of the troupe. Old Charls said that they were cousins, but even squinting Damen could not see the resemblance between the two. Young Charls was svelte and fair and tall, and Old Charls, though handsome enough in his own way, was middle height, and middle aged, and had middling grey in his brown hair. They were named for their grandfather, Charls, explained Old Charls, and it was a common name in Vere, though Damen had not heard it often before.

Old Charls took one look at Damen and paled slightly, to see his height and breadth, but recovered himself heroically, and welcomed him to the company.

“Can you, ah, act?” Old Charls asked, clasping his hands together and twisting.

“Ah,” said Damen, who could not. 

“Charls,” purred Charls, “Have you heard what they’re saying in the streets? The lost Prince of Akielos may yet be alive, and the King is seeking word about him.” He stopped there, without explaining, and raised one golden eyebrow. 

Old Charls faltered. “Yes?”

“Damen, here, is hoping to rejoin his family,” coaxed Young Charls. “And, since we’re heading south _anyway…_ I thought to offer passage, and perhaps assist him in his preparations to meet with his esteemed father once again.”

“Ah.” Old Charls didn’t seem to follow, but he nodded anyway.

Young Charls clapped his hands together, a sharp _smack_ that made both Damen and Old Charls jump. “Excellent! To Ios!”

He pulled Damen away at the elbow, as behind them, Damen could hear Old Charls mutter to himself, _Ios, but that’s… Oh dear._

Damen returned to town and his small room in Allard’s house, long enough to gather his meager belongings, and leave a note. 

He was heading south.


	2. Chapter 2

His lessons began at once, starting with the obvious question _did he speak Akielon?_

He… did not know.

He had never heard anyone speak Akielon before. 

Charls spoke some, and Jord knew how to swear, but they were the only two in the company. Huet said he could understand one in ten words, but speaking it was out of his purview.

Damen did not find himself fluent from the offset, which was not a point in his favor of being the lost Akielon Prince, but he was well suited to adaptation. He could not remember precisely, but he seemed to recall having to relearn Veretian when he had first woken in Edouard’s apothecary, spending months half-recognizing words, and having to wrestle his mind into submission in order to speak coherently.

This was easier than that, at least. Charls was not a professional teacher by any means, nor was he terribly patient, but he was used to working with men to learn lines by rote. His knowledge was limited, and he clearly spoke with an accent, but it was a good start.

They rode in the back of the caravan together with Jord and Huet, while Charls’ lovely horse plodded along with the wagons. 

Some of the other players joined them when they rested, to meet Damen and try and know their newest member. Toman, a man in his early thirties with a short cropped beard, did not like Akielons, and he was not subtle about it. They were all prejudiced, but Toman was an ass about it. His distaste in the lessons kept him away from the caravan and Damen as often as possible. Marcel, a more cheerful type, was fascinated at how much Charls knew to teach, having never heard him speak Akielon before. He stuck around for the lessons in swear words.

Charls could also write in basic Akielon, which was doubly a feat, since half the players had to learn their lines by ear. To read and speak _two_ languages? 

Damen couldn’t fathom what he was doing with a theatre troupe, save that he was clearly born for the drama. 

Damen could read too, though, and had learned his letters well at Edouard’s guidance, and now under Charls’ tutelage, was venturing on to Akielon as well.

Once they had opened the floodgates of Damen’s linguistic abilities, it seemed very simple to adopt the foreign words and hold them close. He liked the way the words felt on his tongue, the taste of the syllables. 

Damen spoke quietly to himself when he was alone, reciting kingly phrases that Charls had taught him from their plays, and reshaping the words until they sounded _right_ in his head. They wrote on scraps of paper, little missives and lists of nouns, poems and sonnets from plays, wasting a precious resource for the sake of knowledge. Charls laughed when Damen asked if it was alright to use what little paper they had to spare, and assured him it was no great cost.

Damen felt sure in the knowledge that this was a language he could love very easily, if only he could learn more of it.

  


* * *

  


They camped beside a shallow river, a cool trickle that dipped into deep pools and tender falls across smooth stones. The troupe unpacked like dropped bucket, sprawling and untidy, with bedrolls and tents scattered in disarray. Jord and Huet helped Young Charls set up his tent, while Damen pitched his bedroll a comfortable distance from the fire at the loose center of camp. Old Charls slept inside the caravan, as was his right as master of the troupe.

Though sunset was encroaching on them, most of the men stripped off and waded into the water to bathe, players lacking the decency of common Veretian modesty. It was an unexpected breath of fresh air for Damen, who had always felt stifled by Veretian sensibilities. He shed his layers, letting the muscles in his back arch and stretch out of his tight laced leather jacket, and waded into the water up to his hips. The stream was cool and dark in the purpling dusk, tiny fish merely shadows and ghosts against his thighs and calves. 

He washed, perfunctorily. 

“You have a scar,” came a voice behind him. 

Damen turned, and slipped a little on the rocks, to see Charls, pale and shining like the crescent moon, behind him. “What?” Charls was as naked as the rest of the men, and hardly any less immodest. 

“There, on your belly. Looks like it was bad.”

Damen looked down, and touched his fingers to the pale starburst of scar tissue beneath his ribs. It was sensitive under his fingertips. “It nearly killed me.”

“I can see that. It’s a sword wound, surely. What happened? If I may,” Charls asked, very nearly convincing in his demure withdrawal. He reached a hand out, and let his pale fingers hover in the air above Damen’s own, bold enough to make the move but not presumptuous enough to touch. 

Damen sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. I woke up at the physician’s in Nesson-Eloy, with that, and this,” and he ducked down, lifting the curls at his brow to show Charls the thin ropey scar that crawled up into his hairline from his temple. He had other scars from working in the smithy, on his hands and arms, bright spark burns on his chest and belly from flying embers, but none as old or as bad as these two. “And few memories to make sense of. He saw me healed, and I apprenticed to the blacksmith to try and pay him back.”

That time Charls made contact, his touch as light as a feather against Damen’s brow. Their fingers grazed, and they both dropped their hands, retreating with a gentle swirl of water. 

“A mystery, indeed,” Charls murmured, and then one of the men dunked Ned into the pool behind them with a cacophony of screeching, and the moment was broken.

Damen watched Charls wade back out of the stream, rivulets of water running down his hips and thighs. His slender back flexed, muscled and surprisingly strong. 

Damen ducked down a little into the water, and splashed about until he was ready to surface in polite company. Even though there was no polite company for miles around, there was still a limit to Damen’s own modesty.

  


* * *

  


There is a certain type of rogue who leaves their home to parade about in other people's clothes. 

Damen, not being the type, was nevertheless surrounded by exactly that and in abundance.

The troupe was, at best, a mixed bunch. It was important, of course, as the players must have a broad range in order to fill the world of the stage to satisfaction. Everyone worked together to set up the stages and break them down again, to wrangle the horses and wagons, and set up camp, and help with costumes and changes and effects.

Old Charls, who managed the company as a whole, and looked after them like a benevolent, if overwhelmed fatherly figure, played kings, lords, and ghosts, and characters who did not need to put much effort into physicality, but looked very strong and noble standing still.

Guillaime, his personal assistant, had no acting abilities whatsoever, and was relegated to hiding under the stage to set off smoke bombs at opportune moments. Sometimes he played a silent courtier in the back in they were desperate, but even then his face went white and his eyes locked on the audience, and he had to be coaxed behind the curtains when the scene was done, for he froze under public scrutiny. 

Jord, in addition to managing the stage, was awful at any role but a deferential soldier. Luckily there was always at least one to three deferential soldiers in a play, and so Jord took to those magnificently. 

Huet, who worked the costumes, was little better, but had a satisfying belt that carried his voice, monotonous as it was, to the farthest reaches of the audience. He was good for dramatic idiots and comedic relief, and wore the most absurd feathered hats without blinking.

Maurice was the youngest, a boy barely sixteen, who played girls and pages reliably. He had a fluting voice that had not been unseemly damaged by the ravages of puberty, enough that he did not squeak when he spoke in falsetto, and he looked very well in a dress and wig. 

Ned, just older than Young Charls at twenty-two, played nurses and motherly figures with fewer lines, but important stage presence, and held a delighted satisfaction in playing wretched crones and witches.

Alaric, Claud, and Marcel were more or less interchangeable, in terms of acting abilities, and played variably, soldiers, gravediggers, pirates, courtiers, witches, and woodland creatures as the scenes demanded. They were, by and large, the most adaptable actors of the group, and the most tightly knit, as like attracts like and they had bonded well over playing the chorus. 

Renaut and Toman played leading men when Young Charls was otherwise occupied. Renaut was handsome, for all that it mattered when most of the audience stood too far away to see his face, and he had a geniality to his character that lent itself well to heroes, tragic or otherwise. Toman, who was an ass, has a stronger bravado, and an air of overconfidence that suited a man well pleased with himself.

Young Charls played leading ladies, and leading men, when the leading man needed to be a step above the rest. Of everyone, he had the gift of bringing his dramatis personae to life that was unmatched by any Damen had seen before. He was the shining jewel of the company, not only for his bright sparking eyes and his shiny gilt hair, but for the way he embodied the roles he was given, until his own character was fully immersed in a stranger's life. Damen watched him act, and saw him disappear, so that there was nothing left of the man, and only the performance remained. He looked just as good laced into a tight, high-necked Veretian courtier’s jacket and trousers that hugged his long, slender thighs, as he did in a low cut, brocade gown with lace and frothy layered skirts. He looked just as good in a simple, loose white shirt and leggings, running through rehearsals, and swinging swords with Jord during fight call.

Often, the sheer talent of Charls’ performances was underutilized, as the company performed many comedic romps that belied the dramatic potential of his strong, lithe frame and cutting, clear voice. On the other hand, his comedic timing was incomparable, and when the character called for the scathing wit of a sassy maid, men fell to their knees to be cut down by the slice of his tongue and the swing of his hips.

Damen wanted to watch him, always.

The first time Damen saw Charls as Queen Genevier up close and personal, they had reached the next town, and were preparing for the day’s performance in an open field of lush green. 

Damen stopped breathing, and dropped a hammer onto his foot. 

Wrapped in pale yellow brocade like swaths of butter and honey, Charls’ broad shoulders were bared by the low cut of his neckline. Lace edging cupped his chest to create the smallest impression of bosoms, his collarbones sharp and white above. His neck was long and pale, unadorned by jewellery, his square jaw caressed and concealed by the long yellow wig that curled down to his narrow hips, hidden in layers of skirt and wooden framework. His sleeves pouched around the upper arm to disguise his musculature, and then laced tight from the elbow to the delicate turn of his wrist. He looked like the sun, wreathed in gold, draped around a mortal form, and then peeled back to reveal hidden delicacies. 

It felt improper, to look on a woman and see so much skin. It felt even more salacious to look at _Charls_ and see how calculated the cut of the dress was, to draw the eye to the most decadent parts of the body without revealing more than decency demanded. Damen forcibly encountered the notion that that was the entire point. 

Players had no shame, and Damen was breathless with it.

Guillaime looked at Damen, a little concerned. He bent down and retrieved the hammer, handing it back to him.

“Ow,” said Damen, and then, “Thank you.” He turned himself to the caravan, and went back to fixing the loose curtain that had been ripped from its moorings during rehearsal the day before.

  


* * *

  


In addition to his various lessons on _How to be an Akielon Prince_ , Damen was subject to the entirety of the troupe’s regular pilgrimage from town to town. They travelled by day, camped by night, and in between they rehearsed constantly. There were new plays being learnt, old plays being revived, classics that were always ready at the drop of a hat, for whatever crowd they might find themselves in front of.

Watching without participating was only interesting so many times, despite Damen’s delight in seeing how the mechanics went together to create the final product, so he often found himself drifting towards whoever was occupied with physical tasks, over deeds of the mind. Usually that meant helping Huet with the costuming, although sewing was not a skill Damen had ever cultivated.

His favorite past time, though he was not invited to actually participate in it, was fight call, when Jord coordinated the action sequences to suit the players. They all had some basic knowledge of sword combat for the stage, but not much more than to fool the audience into believing one had been stabbed.

As per usual, Charls was well beyond basics.

Charls stepped assuredly to Jord’s direction, the haughty attitude that infused his every move set aside for the briefest moment in favor of the swing of steel and a carefully placed foot. 

He and Toman moved together, and recited, and moved again in quarter-speed, half-speed, and then full, and the rush of blades clashing and rising voices was as though a spell had been cast. No longer were they companions on the road, cautiously stepping through orchestrated maneuvers, but a shining prince and his enemy in a duel to the death.

Then Jord called a halt, and they were simply men once again.

Next they did the throw. It was still disconcerting without the wig or the skirts, Toman’s hand gripping Charls’ shiny hair, his wrist caught in a firm grasp. Together they moved Charls’ weight across Toman’s body to roll and land in a sprawl, hand slapping the ground to counterbalance the impact. In full costume, skirts whirling and hair flowing free, the throw got shocked, horrified gasps from the audience every time. Charls would land in a disgraced heap, a wounded woman lost in confectionery layers of tulle and silk, like a cake with a boot print in it. It made the rise, the revenge, all the more satisfying to see him brought so low.

Toman moved on to see Huet before that afternoon's performance, and Jord stepped into the ring with Charls. 

This, Damen liked even better. This was more satisfying to watch than stage combat, which was choreographed to the slightest twist of the wrist and consistent every time. Now, they held their blunted blades in battle ready stances, poised on the balls of their feet.

Their spar, after the warm up and calculated drilling of fight call, was a blood quickening match as though between soldiers. Jord was very good, enough that Damen thought he must have been a proper soldier before he joined the company, the kind that were stationed at Nesson, instead of the mercenaries that wandered in and out of town. Charls though, was a masterpiece, the kind of fighter that came from rigorous training in addition to innate skill, and years of it.

The kind of fighting Damen dreamed of achieving.

Charls put Jord on his back with a series of particularly sly Veretian flourishes, and passed his blade to Damen as he waltzed off, also to find Huet.

Jord wheezed on the ground for a moment.

Damen wandered over, and peered down at him. “Need a hand?”

“Oh, piss off.”

Damen hauled Jord upright again, and let him catch his breath. “He’s good, isn’t he?”

“Best I’ve known in years. Not quite as good as—” Jord stopped. “He’s good. Are you ready?”

“Hm?”

Jord swung his sword at Damen, who could only block, and step in turn.

Damen had learned some swordcraft on his own, at Nesson-Eloy. He snuck out to the fort and watched the soldiers stationed there run drills, and copied their motions as best he could with a stick, and later swords borrowed from his master’s smithy. Mercenaries wouldn’t teach him without coin, and soldiers laughed at him, for his coloring and his heritage, and drove him off, so he learned in his own despite them. He liked the way a sword felt in his grip, like a sense of accomplishment. With a sword in hand, Damen felt like he was a man, even as an unanchored frisson of fear rushed through him at the same time. 

Every time he fought though, that nervous echo got a little farther away. 

He fought Jord almost to a draw, with the maneuvers he had learned, and the steps he had taught himself, and some natural instinct that demanded he move in certain ways. Jord knocked the dull blade from his hand to the dirt.

“Good,” he said. “Again.” He had stepped sideways from joking everyman into drill commander as easy as breathing.

“Don’t you have to get dressed up too?”

Jord snorted. “My costume doesn’t have tiers like a royal wedding cake.” He made an expansive gesture at his utilitarian pants and unlaced jacket, dusted with a fine coating of dirt. “I am already in character.”

“Alright then,” said Damen, and he raised the sword again.

He disarmed Jord for the first time three _again’s_ later. 

Jord looked at him assessingly. “You have a knack for this.”

Damen shrugged. “I like this.”

“We’ll do this tomorrow, too.”

Damen disarmed him in the first round the next day. Each time after that was quicker.

  


* * *

  


Damen got an answer to his speculations a couple weeks later, a few hundred miles south of Nesson-Eloy and as far from home as Damen could ever remember being. 

Jord squinted at the question. 

Damen shrugged. “Just curious.”

“In a manner of speaking. I was a guard on merchant trains for a while, before I did a dint serving in the palace militia at Arles.”

Damen whistled. “What are you doing here, then?”

Jord’s gaze slipped pass Damen to something over his shoulder. Damen turned to follow his line of sight, and saw Charls, working through a scene with Alaric and Ned. He was dressed simply in loose undershirt and tight trousers, his hair swept up in a half-hearted tail that glinted as he turned. His hand, holding pages of script, waved emphatically like a royal command.

“I met a boy who needed my help.”

“You left the palace to be a player, for _him?_ ” Saying it out loud, Damen could think of no one else who could inspire that kind of loyalty, even for a simple travelling actor. Still, it seemed unreasonable. 

“Needs must,” said Jord. “Me and Huet have been with him for nearly five years now. Hell, we practically raised the ice cold bitch since then, not that he’d ever show it. Like the worst little brother you could imagine.” He snorted. He sounded fond. “He’s come a long way. We met old cousin Charls and his man Guillaime on the road to Reims, and our Young Charls felt the travelling life suited him. He always liked stories, as I understand it.”

“And you’ve been on the road ever since.”

“Yep. Never had been one for sticking to one place, I suppose. And palace life didn’t suit me, after a while. Things changed when the Regent came to power.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

“Not personally. I saw him though.”

“What about the Princes?” 

Jord was quiet. “I was recommended to the palace by Auguste. But I never met him. His Prince’s Guard was all aristocracy, and I’m just a rat in a suit, when it comes down to things. I met the younger Prince though.” He was still watching Charls.

“Is he as beautiful as they say?”

“Yes. When I met him, he was the most stunning child you’d ever seen.”

  


* * *

  


Damen did not enjoy all his lessons equally. 

He liked speaking Akielon with Charls, learning sword craft from Jord and Huet, who was also handy with a blade, and reading the playbooks that Old Charls brought out, precious copies kept hidden in the caravan. Young Charls taught him which were based in history, and which were metaphors for history, and which were inventions of a fanciful playwright with state funding, and therefore propaganda masqueraded as history. They were all written by Veretians, but there were ties to neighboring countries: a comedy of errors starring men disguised as women in the Vaskian High Court, the tragedy of Nekton, who was slain by his brother the Akielon King, for daring to save his life and prove himself the better fighter, a forbidden romance between a Patran princess and her humble slave.

Some stories Charls recited from memory, history lessons that he’d read once, or had heard about and found interesting. He was a wonder, with that memory for words.

Damen’s least favorite lesson was statecraft. All the things Charls was trying to teach him about being a king made sense, the fighting, the history, the language, save _this_. 

Charls found his approach to problem solving feeble minded.

Damen called him overly convoluted.

Charls declared him a barbarian and a brute, something he made a point of refraining from, since their bargain depended on not being overly antagonistic towards Akielons. They were scheduled to arrive at the border in a month.

Damen called him a coward and Charls went white with rage and would not speak to him for two days. 

It was not Damen’s favorite.

“Why, if I am to be a prince, should I not trust my King to do what is right? Is he not King for a reason? Do you really trust people so little?” Damen found himself speaking, more loudly than necessary, one day, after Charls had scoffed at his methods. 

Charls’ face closed off in a moment. “I have seen men like you fall to less,” he said, acid in his voice. “A prince can trust no one, a king even less, and if you think family will see you safely through, you are sorely mistaken. Kingship is a burden, and a price to pay for the privileges it affords you.”

“You would have me make alliances through deception and trickery. How is lying and cheating my people the answer? How will they trust the throne to keep them safe if they cannot trust them to tell the truth?”

“Because a king who is a fool _cannot_ keep his people safe!” Charls shouted. 

Silence fell at camp. He looked shocked at his own outburst. 

Damen saw Jord make as if to stand and approach them, but Huet held him back by the shoulder, keeping him sitting by the fire. Still, they watched. 

Everyone was watching.

Charls looked down, let his hair fall into his face. It caught the glow of the lantern, like a silk curtain shielding him from view.

“Then I will be a better king than what you know,” Damen said. He stood and left Charls to his mood, knowing that if he lingered, he would be ripped apart. 

“He’s not had… very good luck with authority figures,” Jord offered later, in an awkward tone. 

“I gathered that,” said Damen. 

“I think this is good for him, though,” he continued, looking away but not wandering off. “To see a man who believes in righteousness standing for what’s good and true. Even if you are a brute.”

“Thank you,” said Damen, because he could think of nothing else to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *puts laurent in a dress* i made a cake


	3. Chapter 3

Most of the time, Old Charls contracted with inns that allowed the company to set up their stage in the yard, surrounded by balconied rooms and open windows. For a copper sol, people could wedge themselves into the yard, packed to the gills along three sides of the apron stage. For the price of a room, a man could elevate himself above the mess, and lean out his window in his own private company. Food and drink from the kitchens kept the energy high, and the inn well stocked.

They carried pallets with them in one of the wagons, to lay out as the stage, and sourced the inns for barrels to prop them up on to create the raised platform. Curtains and draperies hid the players behind the scenes, held aloft by the dismantled frame of the caravan. 

Sometimes they’d set up in the market square, and receive their fees from an empty helmet, passed around by Old Charls as a collection pot. Those were sure to be the most ribald of the plays, with the fewest effects, and generally speaking, the most yelling between the audience and the players. 

Once on their journey south, they stopped for a week in Auvers, a city large enough for its own playhouse. It was a massive eight-sided building with three stories of gallery seating, a balcony built into the stage, and trap doors throughout the apron, for all kinds of effects they couldn’t achieve on the road. The quality, which was already quite good for a troupe of vagabond players, escalated until Damen found himself rapt with awe at the magic of the stage, even though he had been the one to rig the smoke powder, and set up a fly that would carry Marcel’s ass-faced fairy from the apron to the balcony in one sweep of motion. Performing the same play at an inn-yard, he’d leap off the side of the apron stage into the groundlings, and then vanish underneath the pallets, ducking between barrels until he had retreated back to the curtains behind the stage.

It was also, according to Charls, an excellent chance for Damen to see true nobles and learn from them. Damen tried to point out that according to everyone, Akielon lords were no less barbaric than their soldiers, and so learning about nobility from perfumed and primped Veretian lords was going to end in failure, but Charls shushed him.

“Don’t look at how they _behave_ , look at how they _act_ ,” he said with a twist of his wrist, a very Veretian gesture.

Damen found himself hard pressed to understand the difference.

“Nobility is all in the interaction,” said Charls, speaking slowly. “A king without subjects is no king at all, and a king without allies is not long for this world. It’s in the negotiation that nobility flourishes. If you only ever look at the groundlings, you’ll never learn how one lord speaks to another.”

Damen considered this. “What about a prince?”

Charls stopped for a moment, his head turned away. “A prince is only equalled by another prince. A king, the same. But you’ll understand the basics.”

Damen did not like the way Veretian nobility behaved. They were lush, lascivious, and even more crude than Veretian commoners in the face of Charls’ beauty, hiding the obscenity beneath flowery words and perfumed handkerchiefs. Charls, Ned, and Maurice always received catcalls and lewd remarks from the groundlings, no matter if they were in an inn-yard or an open field, but the murmurings of the lords that Damen overheard, perched in the galleries, crawled with lechery, all the more insidious and dangerous from the power that lay behind it. 

Some lords and ladies brought their pets, bejewelled and brightly colored like pretty, exotic birds, and had themselves serviced during performances. They weren’t even erotic performances, like the pet shows in the palace that Damen had heard of, but dramas, tragedies, comedies. One lord rode his pet’s face to completion while panting over Charls’ dramatic enactment of a murdered wife, strangled to death by her paranoid husband’s grasping hands. Damen wanted to scour his whole body and mind with sand, scrape off the filth of that man’s gasping breath and wet lips, his hands clutched tight in shining hair as he fucked his pets mouth, his greedy eyes fixed on the lifeless drape of Charls’ body on the stage.

If Charls were approached by a smelly, pot bellied commoner with rough hands and too much drink in him, he’d turn the man off without a moment's hesitation, whether with his sharp knife or sharper tongue. Should Charls find himself under the thumb of one of these poisonous lords, Damen did not like to think of the aftermath, neither if he cut himself out, or if he failed to. 

It was an educational experience however, as Charls had said, though Damen took it more to be of how easy the abuse of power came to those who had it. Damen thought to himself that if he was accepted into Theomedes’ family and found the home he was searching for, he would endeavor to be a man worthy of that power, and use it well. 

Charls rolled his eyes when he told him, and called him a simpleton. Damen caught his gaze though, and found a curious look on his face. It was assessing, as though he had found something he had not known to look for, and did not know what to do with.

  


* * *

  


The company did well in Auvers, enough that Old Charls gave them a little extra coin on their final night, to have themselves a small celebration at the inn.

The Veretians took the idea and ran with it.

Old Charls was easily flustered, for all that he ran a company of men with loose modesty and wanton concepts of proper behavior, and he retired early before the debauchery could really start. So long as they did not hurt or humiliate themselves, they were free to pursue whatever nonsense they wished to, provided Charls heard about none of it in the morning. 

Young Charls saw him off with a kiss on the cheek and a gentle hand on his elbow.

They called for drinks, and the celebration quickly went downhill.

Claud had Marcel on his lap, and a hand down the back of his trousers within fifteen minutes of Old Charls heading upstairs. 

Some of their fellow patrons had seen one or two plays, and approached to nervously fawn at the players, offering their admiration. Renaut took up with a handsome man in a fine suit, perhaps a lords son out for some revelry, and they shifted off to a more quiet corner. Toman found himself his own young man and had him sit on his lap like a pet, feeding him sweets and tipping wine into his mouth until he was swaying. 

Maurice, at sixteen, had a cup of wine and a look of teenage desperation on his face. He had been informed that he was not to get himself fucked by a full grown man under any circumstances, and since neither Charls’ trusted the men of Auvers to be the responsible ones, Maurice was relegated to the sidelines. Young Charls sat with him and taught him card tricks.

Damen joined them not long after Claud and Marcel slipped off to a private room together. Ned, Damen learned unwillingly, liked to lift his skirts and bend over men twice as big as he was, and Alaric was wooing one of the kitchen girls in full view of the place.

“Is he going to get her in trouble for siring himself a bastard?”

Charls peered over Damen’s shoulder at Alaric and his sweetcheeked girl. “If he can get a child on a woman, I’d be well impressed. He’d cause less scandal here with her than he would bedding the houseboy. He knows his business.”

Damen considered the fact that Alaric did not bathe with the rest of the men, and blinked. 

“I heard in Akielos, the women go bare chested and the men wrestle naked,” Maurice was saying with a look of barely stifled longing on his face. Charls looked like he was trying not to laugh. 

“That’s what they say,” he murmured, dealing Damen into their card game. 

Damen’s lips lifted into a sly grin, involuntarily. “Will you teach me Akielon wrestling too, Charls?”

Charls turned his look of amusement into Damen. “I’ll wrestle naked when the Prince of Vere does,” he said with a laugh in his voice.

“He’s in Acquitart, right? We are heading to the border, we could stop by and have a bout.”

“If anyone can convince him it’s you, Damen,” Maurice said, his face flushing bright red, and not only from the wine, when Damen turned to lift his eyebrows at him. “I think so.”

Damen laughed. Maurice quite liked to watch Damen lift heavy objects, and encouraged him at every opportunity to feel comfortable taking his shirt off.

“Perhaps that’s true,” said Charls, still watching Damen. “If anyone.”

“But you also have an unfair advantage, being a head and shoulders taller than everyone else in the world, and I think perhaps the Prince would be impressed by that. He is said to be a rare beauty himself,” Maurice was drifting into fantasy now, as Damen and Charls lay down cards. “As bright and shining as his brother, and ten times prettier, with hair like the sun. How old is the Prince now?”

“Twenty,” said Charls. His gaze had gone far away too. “He’ll be twenty-one at the end of spring.”

“That’s not too old,” Maurice said. “Maybe we _should_ go to Acquitart.”

“We’re not going to Acquitart.”

They played, while the inn around them thrummed with life and noise. And then Charls looked over his shoulder sharply.

Damen followed his gaze. 

“The bastard Prince-killer is heading the treaty with the Regent now, since the King has sickened” a man in rough travelling gear was saying to his table. “I’ve had word from a merchant friend, who has just come from Kesus, the whole country is in upheaval.” He turned his head and spat on the floor. Others copied.

“Prince Laurent wouldn’t bow to the Prince-killer,” another man said. “The Regent is leading us to destruction. What could he possibly want from Akielos enough to deal with that _bastard?_ ”

“At least the Regent is not a spoiled brat avoiding his duties to his people. Six months to his ascension, and he’s still not deigned to come out of his ivory tower.”

The debate took off, as it was wont to. Jord looked like he wanted to join the fight, but restrained himself. He was, Damen had learned, unabashedly the Prince’s man.

Damen heard Charls mutter something under his breath. He turned.

“Everything is about power,” Charls said to the cards in his hands. He was shuffling the deck, over and over.

“If…” Damen hesitated. “If I am to be the lost Prince of Akielos, that makes Prince Kastor my brother, doesn’t it?” 

“It makes you his Crown Prince. Legitimacy trumps age, even in barbarous Akielos, where the King may spill in any whore and call it his son.” Charls has a viciousness in his voice that was unfamiliar. “Prince Kastor is a scoundrel and a coward.” 

“He defeated Prince August in single combat at Marlas. I did not think that was the action of a coward, for all that it was not in our favor. Your favor.”

Charls’ face darkened. “That's what they say.” He turned his sharp blue eyes to Damen. “He’s much less a prince than you are shaping up to be.”

Damen sat still beneath his gaze, like watching a viper, trying not to provoke it but unable to take his eyes away. 

“We need to make good time now, if Theomedes is sick. We might not have until summer to get you to Ios.”

Maurice fell asleep with his head down in the table, his wine cuddled close to his face.

Damen and Charls sat up, playing cards and speaking quietly about what makes a prince, until the night was still and dark around them.

When he retired, Charls ran his slender fingers over Damen’s forearm in a fleeting goodbye, and Damen felt the flush of it through his entire body.

  


* * *

  


They woke, begrudgingly, to a bright morning and a great deal of physical labor. The playhouse did not need striking, which was a relief, but the caravan seemed to have violently expelled its contents all over the private areas behind the stage, and needed addressing. Huet saw to his costumes, Jord to his props and weapons, and everyone else staggered around more or less helplessly, wincing and getting in their way. 

While Marcel gingerly organized various feathered hats, and Toman tried to stack prop swords as quietly as possible, Old Charls burst in on them with an elated shout that sent half the men wincing.

“I have news! Come, come quickly lads, gather around.” He had been to see the master of the playhouse, and collect their share of the coin for the final night, and receive any new missives.

“Come, come, come.” Old Charls was looking at them all, especially Young Charls, with a strange expression on his face, helpless excitement tinged with uncertainty. “We have done well, here,” he said, stifling the excitement in order to speak calmly to the company. “Our patrons at the theatre have spread the word of our excellent craft, and we have several new contract offers that have just arrived!”

“Excellent,” said Young Charls, cautiously. He was stoic and unmoved by Old Charls’ anticipation, but Damen could see a tension in the way he held himself. 

“We have opportunities at Troman and Macon,” both well populated cities roughly between themselves and Akielos, “The lord of Fortaine has invited us to the keep, to perform for the border lords,” Young Charls’ eyes lit up at that, and then froze in wide eyed shock when Old Charls finished with, “And the Regent sends his regards, and offers to host us in Arles for the winter season!”

Old Charls looked like he was going to vibrate out of his shoes with excitement. 

Young Charls looked like he might be sick. 

Performing for the Regent? A nerve wracking proposition, and for the entire _winter_ , when travelling was more difficult and audiences fewer and farther between. Courtiers would be kept up in Arles, snowed in with the servants and the pets, and there would be high demand for entertainment and performance. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. The men behind them murmured to each other, their voices slowly rising as they caught Charls’ elation and expanded on it.

“No.” 

Young Charls has recovered himself, though his face was still more ashen than his usual shade. 

Old Charls blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“No. We head south, to Fortaine. We have a goal and a time limit. We must make it to Ios before the King grows too sick. If the Regent wants to see us perform,” Young Charls’ lips twisted in something that was almost a smile, “He’ll have to wait for spring.”

The men deflated slightly, but Charls would not be moved. He had surprising weight in the company, Damen saw sometimes, to be able to veto such a universally liked option, in order to carry out his own mad plans, but Old Charls folded without a fight, and the company men followed, grumbling.

“We can make it to Troman by the end of the week, will that suffice? We will miss the snows from the north if we keep heading south anyway, and the winter will be even more mild in Akielos. We’ll not be trapped on the road,” Charls offered Jord in an undertone, the barest conciliatory gesture. Jord, who had been one of the few not to seem excited about playing for the Regent, was not the one who needed consolation, but he nodded, and took care to pass on the word.

Old Charls handed Young Charls a letter before they dispersed, and he separated from the group to read it while the final items were packed away. He was frowning when he finished, and took off with a word that he would catch up with the company on the road. Huet followed him, despite Charls’ glower and narrow blue eyes.

“There’s a township just west of Troman, where an old family friend lives. I’ve invited him to see us play,” he announced later, slowing his horse beside the caravan’s seat. He spoke specifically to Jord, but his eyes turned to Damen’s and seemed to catch.

  


* * *

  


The physician joined them on the road by happenstance, a few miles outside of Troman, with his own little wagon. 

They played their five days in the inn, and the physician left with them as they turned southwest towards Macon.

Ned snorted, once it became obvious that Paschal had joined their little company. “Are you collecting vagabonds now? We’ll be twice the numbers by the time we unload this one,” he said with a nod of his head to Damen.

“Please,” said Charls. “I don’t collect any old riff raff. The vagabonds I have now are plenty to satisfy my needs.”

With his own little cart, the physician did not have to share his space with twelve large and rowdy men and no personal boundaries, but their company was increasingly unwieldy on the roads. 

They had a wagon for the costumes, one for props and palettes, the caravan that expanded into the stage filled with the foodstores and personal effects and the occasional body shoved in between, and now the physician’s small cart. 

At night, Charls would sit with the physician and speak in soft tones not meant to carry, sat on little stools that Paschal brought with him. For a family friend, Paschal held himself very deferentially to the young man, bowing his head in its little loaf hat to his words. 

Damen overheard them once, when the other men were setting up camp, and Damen was tending to the horses. 

“Your men have done well by you,” Paschal was saying.

Charls shook his head. “They are not my men, I am just--”

“They are not your brother’s men,” the physician interrupted, unusual to his regular cautious speaking. “As I am not your uncle’s. They look to you, as they should, and despite the… _eccentricities_ ,” he said this word carefully, “Of your command, you hold your men together well. Your brother would be proud, to see how they love you.”

Charls stared into the gathering dark. “My brother would never have found himself in this position.”

“Your brother had his own trials to face.”

Damen shifted, discomfited by his own eavesdropping and thinking to move away before he heard any more, and Charl’s sharp eyes snapped to him. He stood, and left Paschal to his little stools without a second glance, vanishing into the twilight.

Paschal turned his pale gaze to Damen, and frowned through his spectacles. They were a rarity Damen had not seen often, difficult to make, and more difficult to pay for, an expensive and uncommon luxury for a travelling physician. They flashed in the light of the campfire, shielding Paschal’s thoughts.

Damen bowed his head, and retreated to sit by Jord.

  


* * *

  


“Attack on the blade, _glissande_ , cross step, yes, _corps-a-corps_ , Charls bring your shoulder up into his, and Renaut, you step back to the left, and fall, _good_. Recover, and from the top.”

Damen couldn’t be bothered learning the names of steps, when he was still learning a second language and a thousand absurd rules of propriety. He just knew when it looked right. The attack, the slow scrap of metal on metal as Charls’ blade slid along Renaut’s, the slow motion shove as Charls’ shoulder hit Renaut’s chest, and the dramatic knap when Renaut’s back curled into the impact of the ground, tucking his legs up into a half-roll. At full speed it would take only a moment.

It pleased him to see Charls move through the steps Damen had laid out for him, meeting Renaut’s blunted blade with his own under Jord’s careful supervision. This play, they would perform for the lord of Fortaine. 

Damen had helped Jord choreograph the fights in this production, as it had been long enough since they had last performed it that Renaut had forgotten his steps, and Jord had needed to accommodate Maurice’s new wingspan, the boy having grown six inches in the last year.

It did not look the same as their other fights, for Damen’s aesthetics were different. He did not favor the sly tricks that Charls preferred, or the fancy footwork that Jord kept adding, but simple, straightforward maneuvers that struck with precision and no wasted energy.

Charls did not like his fighting style. True enough, it would not suit him in a real fight, since although he had a decent reach he did not have the strength or build for the kind of brutal no-nonsense techniques that matched Damen’s temperament, but for the stage it was gorgeous to watch. 

It lent the character of the young prince, lead to destruction by his own overcomplicated maneuverings, both a groundedness and a sense of exoticism that set him apart from the other characters. The prince in the play was a simple man in search of answers. The straightforwardness of his fighting showed how far the lies had drawn him from the truth, and towards his own destruction.

That was how Guillaime described it, anyway. Damen just liked how it looked. 

When Renaut retired, sweating through his shirt and breathing heavily, Damen stepped in to train against Charls, who always demanded extra rounds, no matter how hard he worked.

Jord watched them as well, calling out critiques and advice to each as they sparred. 

In the spar, Charls relied on his own style, full of elaborate footwork and delicate twists of his wrists to deflect Damen’s heavy blows. Some days they were evenly matched, some days Charls outmaneuvered him.

More often Damen won, with his sturdy sense of self, and the knowledge of his own body outweighing Charls’ sneakiest tricks.

Also, his body in general, which outweighed Charls several times, and took them to the ground when Charls tried a dirty move and ended up tripping himself as well. Damen landed with a thud over Charls’ sprawled form, barely catching his weight to keep from truly crushing him. 

Charls coughed, the breath knocked from his lungs, sword dropped and arms trapped between their chests.

“That’s what you get for cheating,” Damen laughed, propping himself up. His breath touched Charls’ hair, spread out like a halo in the dirt beneath them, shining despite its circumstances.

His breath touched Charls’ chin, and cheeks, and their chests touched with every inhale.

Charls licked his lips, and gasped again, clutching for air. His hands spasmed between them, fingers gripping Damen’s vest. He was hot between Damen’s legs, body warmed from the fight and blood running to the surface of his skin.

Damen leaned back on his knees, unfolding, and towered over Charls.

“Think you can take me again?” He asked, hoping to make Charls’ flush darken.

He achieved it. He also received a narrow eyed glare, as Charls wriggled out from between his thighs and pushed himself upright, reclaiming his sword and standing en garde. 

“Show me that backhand move again, I will learn its counter,” Charls announced, his attention so sharp and fixed so entirely on Damen his skin prickled with it.

“Gladly, my prince,” Damen bowed mockingly, and showed him again.

He noticed later that Jord had gone very quiet, and was only glancing at them from the corner of his eye, so as to keep watch while maintaining an illusion of privacy. Charls did not look away from him until they were finished.

  


* * *

  


The men attacked in the night.

They had bedded down in a copse of trees that provided bare shelter from the winter rains. Those who could fit were squashed into the wagons, those who couldn’t were squashed into shared tents. Damen had found himself curled awkwardly in Charls’ tent, too tall to stretch out. He lay on his side watching golden eyelashes flutter against white cheeks until it was too dark to see. Jord was tucked into the other corner, snoring quietly. 

The thud of hoofbeats woke Maurice in the darkness with a shriek. What followed was chaos. Jord ripped out of the tent, hiking up his trousers and tying them carelessly. Charls followed, pushing his hair back from his face. Damen tried not to take the tent down with him as he exited.

He heard someone call his name in the darkness and turned. Jord pressed something into his hand, long and heavy, and Damen turned again to meet a rider’s sword and deflect it. The sparks that flew in the darkness lit up a strange man’s dark eyes.

When he swung again, Damen realized that the sword he held was not one of the blunted stage weapons, but live steel. He cut the man down, and he fell from the saddle with a gurgle.

There were horses all around, trampling tents, rearing in the dark, huffing and snorting. Six of them, big horses with big men, clan raiders? 

Damen heard steel impacting steel, and a whuff from behind him, and a scream of terrified boy. He felt time slow around him, and worked on cutting down the attackers, his eyes searching for any advantage, any glimmer in the darkness.

Someone dropped something onto the embers of the campfire and it flared.

The night lit up.

Jord and Huet were fighting men on horseback, Marcel had Maurice clutched to his chest, backed against the caravan in terror, Old Charls and Guillaime and Alaric were peeking out from the opened doors with white faces, and Renaut was shaking, so scared Damen could see the whites of his eyes. He had a sword in his hands, but they were limp, the blade dragging in the dirt as he stepped backwards. Damen ran to him, hauled his grip up, and shook him firmly.

“Protect them,” he commanded, shoving Renaut to the caravan, so that his blade could be put to use between the riders and the terrified players. 

“Where is Toman? Where is Charls?” Renaut asked, as though he had not heard Damen’s instructions. His blade dipped, unconsciously.

“I will find him, I will find them both, _protect your men_.” Damen slapped Renaut’s forearm with the flat of his palm, making him jump. “Play your part.”

“Yes.” Renaut firmed his grip, and took on himself the character of a soldier who was not terrified out of his mind, who had fought before, with real blades, who had killed and never fled. He was still shaking.

Damen left him to it and swept another man off his horse. Six of them, three to go? Where was Charls? Damen was fighting still, Jord had brought his man down, Huet was trying to keep one of the horses from trampling the tents, and then he saw it.

Charls was being driven away from camp, sword to sword with a hulking bear of a man.

Damen shouted, but it went unnoticed in the clamor. 

He could not reach him, caught up as he was with his own opponent. Damen swung, parried, stepped inside the man’s reach, and bodily checked him out of the way, throwing him to the ground. He landed with a thud, and Jord was there to take up the fight, so Damen could run after Charls. 

He came in time to see Charls fumble over the uneven ground, and slip, and then brace his sword against his shoulder and meet the raider’s lunge, driving the point of his sword into the other man’s arm. The man was at least twice his size, and his weight was his disadvantage when the inertia carried him farther onto Charls’ steel. Charls braced his foot on the man’s chest, and heaved the sword back out, letting the man fall in a cry of agony.

Charls stood, gasping, and looked around. The fight seemed to be over.

One more, out of the darkness, from behind Charls. Damen threw himself across the clearing, swept Charls out of the way, and dispatched the man in his blindspot.

Charls was a slip in his arm, his waist trim and firm under Damen’s hand. Damen let the tip of the blade fall, and turned, not letting Charls go. He held him close, pressed to his hip.

“Are you hurt?”

Charls was breathing heavily still, his mouth open and red. “No.”

“Good.”

Into the silence, Marcel asked succinctly, “What the fuck was that?”

Huet spoke out in the darkness too, “Is anyone hurt?”

“Has anyone seen Toman?”

“Ned’s been cut! Put some pressure on that, you’ll be alright.”

“Where is the physician?”

“Maurice, you don’t have to cry, it’s over.”

“Charls! Are you alright?” Jord came stumbling into the clearing, brought up short to see Damen’s arms wrapped around Charls still. “My-- friend, are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Jord.” Charls’ voice was cool, for all that he was trembling. Damen could feel it under his fingertips. “Round up the horses. I want to know who these men are.” 

He mastered himself, and pulled away from Damen’s grip.

Two of the horses had fled, and would not be found in the dark, with everyone nervy and unwilling to venture too far from their fractured camp. The other four were brought under heel, and tied up with the company’s horses. 

Renaut built up the fire with shaking hands, singing his fingers and his shirtsleeves, and cursed quietly under his breath. Huet passed him a cup of wine, and then a cup to everyone, gathering them around the fire so they could see for themselves the status of the company in the light.

Toman was not dead, but hit on the head, and woozy. He had stumbled into the darkness away from camp, far enough to need collecting. Paschal pressed damp cloths to the cut on his forehead. Ned was cut on the arm, and whimpering, and Claud was berating himself for not having protected him. 

No one else was hurt, luckily.

Jord had Damen help him check over the corpses. The company men would be useless for that task, and Damen had killed two of them himself. 

“They were not expecting us to fight, that’s for certain,” said Jord in an undertone. “More fool them. Ugly brute.” He spat on the corpse of the man who had driven Charls away from camp. He was at that, coarse haired and dark, with the face of a brawler.

“Is it personal?” asked Charls, coming from behind. 

“He is familiar to me,” Jord said. “From home.”

Charls looked down at the corpse. His face was closed off and his eyes were very cold.

“Go through his bags, take whatever he has.”

“How do you know him?” asked Damen. 

Jord met his eyes. “I’ve met a lot of people. Do as you’re told, go through the saddlebags.”

“Why did this happen? Why did they attack us?” asked Marcel, holding Maurice close to his chest like Damen wished he could still hold Charls. He could keep him safe if he kept him close. Maurice was crying still, shocked little gasps, trying to keep quiet.

Charls answered, “There are plenty of raiders who come down from the mountains.”

They were too far west for it to be raiders from the foothills, by three days at least. Those weren’t clansmen from Vask, and they were not bandits, no matter what Charls said. Damen didn’t speak up, and did what he was told. 

There was little of interest or value in the men’s saddlebags when Damen looked: food, a surprising amount of coin. There were no markings of ownership, no signifiers of loyalty on the men or the horses. One had a nasty looking knife, and a stack of folded papers. 

Damen opened the papers. “Charls,” he called out, “this letter is for Paschal.”

Charls frowned. “Let me see it.”

Damen handed it over and watched as Charls read it. It was not a good letter. His face lost what little color he had, until he was very nearly grey.

“Charls?”

“I don’t…”

“Charls.”

“Give this to him. I have to—”

He walked away, letting the papers slip from his fingers. Damen caught them, and followed awkwardly. Jord caught up a moment later, and then pushed past, reaching out for Charls. He was waved away by an unsteady hand, and then Charls was falling to his knees, sicking up onto the damp ground. He gasped, and heaved again.

Jord turned to Damen helplessly. “Find Paschal,” he said, crouching. He still did not touch Charls, but hovered very carefully just beside him.

Damen retreated. He found Paschal to pass on the letter, and the word. The man adjusted his hat and took off.

Damen waited with the rest of the troupe at the fire, shaky and unnerved and unable to sleep until dawn, when Charls and Paschal finally returned, both pale, but whole.

“We ride,” announced Charls. He waved away Old Charls’ attentions, and Jord’s and Ned’s, concerned for the man they considered a brother, and hoisted himself up onto his mare. He took off, leaving the rest of them behind to collect the wagons and hitch the horses. They would keep the four new horses, sell them at the next town.

Jord shook his head when Huet made as if to follow. “Let him go. He needs this.”

Damen wedged himself into their conversation.

“Will he be alright?”

Jord looked at him. “Are you alright?”

Damen frowned, confused. 

“Your first real battle, wasn’t it?”

He hadn’t even noticed, too caught up in concern for Charls’ fraught emotions. He hadn’t even felt his own strange anxiety that came up every time he sparred. It was all subsumed into the energy of the fight, and conquered. He still had the sharpened steel blade Jord had pressed upon him. “Yes. Here,” he said, offering the blade back.

“Keep it,” said Jord. He turned to his things, and fetched the sheath. He gave that to Damen too, and a belt to hold it on. “Wipe off the blade before it rusts, and I’ll teach you how to care for it. I think we’ll all be better for it.”

“Were they after the physician?”

Jord was quiet for a moment. “I suppose. We’ll never know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello thank u for coming on this adventure with me, i have a lot of feelings about theatre?!?!! and #drama and i appreciate you all


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